mimi, my star

Early in the morning on June 29, I lost the most incredible woman I will ever know — my Mimi, my star. Her favorite thing about me, besides my heart, was my words. She never let me forget how proud she was of me, how much she believed in my ability to take my writing and thrive.

Honored and privileged are just two words I have to describe what it felt like to give her eulogy, and I want to share it with the rest of the world, because everyone — not just my family — deserves to know what an irreplaceable woman she was.

For Mimi:

When I was little and living on 24th, just nineteen blocks away from the house with the evergreen awnings and tiny magnolia tree on Winston Court, Mimi would come over — her red hair in a bun on her head — and she would sit in my bay window with me, watching the sunflowers turn their faces to the sun or the raindrops race down the window panes with me at her side.

It was her favorite thing to do, sitting with me in that little bay window, watching the love of her life walk up and down the sidewalk with my little sister on his shoulders, holding an umbrella over both of their heads. Through that window, Mimi found beauty in the thunderstorms and hope in the clear, blue skies. She absorbed every drop of sunlight that landed on her soft skin and turned it into even more love to radiate onto others.

The bay window did her magic. It was her happy place, the place she truly became a Mimi, where she would sit with me, her star, and experience what it felt like to be a grandma for the first time. That bay window was the first place to become ours — mine and hers.

I was her first grandchild, the first one to give her the title she cherished so much, the last one to leave her side. Mimi was my comfort, my safe haven, the one person I knew I could always count on to give me the best advice straight from her heart.

Whenever I needed her guidance, I knew I could walk through her front door, turn left and see her sitting in her chair, glasses perched on her nose as she moved her wrists every so slightly while crocheting her hundredth-something Santa Claus ornament and watching her movie stars on TLC with the volume 10 notches too loud.

There was gentle teaching in every mess of red meat and spices we rolled into meatballs in front of her stained glass window, nurturing in every home-cooked meal she slaved on at the stove, excitement in every phone call she made to me telling me she made Spanish rice for dinner. Nothing she did for me was done without guidance and compassion.

Mimi taught me the meaning of true love, what it looked like to know you’ve found your soulmate and love them unconditionally until the end. I knew it from the moment I understood what being in love meant, and I watched it blossom and grow stronger until Papa held onto her hand and gave her one last goodbye.

No matter how many times she annoyingly and frustratedly moaned “Mario” from her chair in the corner, how many times they bickered over memories only the two of them share, the love she had for him was insurmountable, greater than the love she had for a fresh bouquet of flowers on her kitchen island or a steaming hot bowl of kenederlie on Christmas Eve.

She was my biggest cheerleader, always encouraging me to write my heart out, to share every poem and article I wrote with her, and every time I did, she had the same smile on her face, the same glimmer in her eye as she told me how proud she was of me, how I was the most gifted writer she had ever read, and she said it with so much honesty in her tone even I believe her.

Mimi was one of the only people who had the ability to make me feel beautiful, to make every insecurity weighing me down disappear. I have never thought of myself as beautiful, but today, I am making a promise to Mimi, the most beautiful woman I will ever know, that from now until we meet again, I will never again question my beauty, because Mimi runs through my veins, and any living soul that bloomed from her is incapable of being anything less than graceful, classy, genuine and effortlessly beautiful — inside and out.

I don’t know how to live a life without her, but I know I will learn, because even though I can’t feel her hugs anymore or won’t have any pink lipstick to wipe off of my cheeks after one of her kisses, I know she is still here with me, in every clap of thunder, every flap of a butterflies wings, every twinkle of a star.

A star is never dull, and I was her star for 21 years, shining bright for her in every way possible. But now, I know that when I look up to the sky and see it freckled with the lights of loved ones lost, the brightest one, the one shining down on me, glistening and twinkling with the most beautiful, blazing light, is Mimi watching over me.

She’s my star now, and she will forever burn up there brighter than all the others until we join her one day and speckle the sky around her with the light she gifted us.

Mimi is showing off the light she has had within her since those days spent in the bay window.

Mimi, my star, I have more love for you than there are stars in the sky, and I promise to shine bright for you until I can join you up there, and we can twinkle in the night together.

Rest easy forever, and never forget how much I love you.

Your star forever,

Tay